Online betting site Betfair made an attempt to try and cheer up Hull fans who are fearing the worst for their team on the weekend, namely relegation from the Premier League.
Using a specially designed drone, they dropped a stash of £5000, which was fitted with a GPS, to offer the person who found it, a “parachute payment” referring of course to the funds that relegation teams get to adapt to life in the lower leagues following relegation from the top flight.
It was a simple idea. Drop the cash, give out clues through pictures, videos and a GPS location, and the first to find it keeps it. The last clue that Betfair showed on their Twitter account was of the GPS signal being picked up near Drewton, East Riding, which is about 15 miles from Hull.
Naomi Totten, a Betfair spokesman, said: “Relegation hits everyone hard. The club, the fans, the players.
“Their fans have been through the mill.
“While Hull City will receive a £60 million Parachute Payment, their fans receive nothing of the sort.
“We’ve decided to give away a fan parachute payment of £5,000 in cash.
“We dropped it from a drone this morning and it’s now somewhere in the vicinity of the city.
“The first person who finds it, keeps it.
“Simple as that.”
It was simple enough for Chris Short, 23, who beat all others in the treasure hunt to find the £5,000. Mr Short, of North Cave said “I was in the right place at the right time.” He had recognised the field where the cash had landed from a photograph and video clue posted on Twitter by Betfair.
So he took an early lunch break from work and raced over to nearby Drewton and scoured the field. He had found the cash in a busy within an hour. He wasn’t alone there though, as Mr Short arrived to see about 15 cars parked by the field and more than 30 people scouring the land for the cash.
He said: “When they posted the photograph, I recognised it because I go past it every day on my way to work.
“We got to the field and people started emerging from nowhere.”
“Everyone was saying congratulations and well done to me, it was really good,” said Mr Short.
